JKool

A discussion that has generated some heat recently is pretty interesting to me, so I'm going to see what we can do here.

I suggest a cooperative attempt to determine how praise for victories and blame for losses should be distributed over the UNITS of this team.

Lets say there are 4 main units: Offense, Defense, Special Teams, and Coaching/Game planning. Each of these can be divided into two sub-groupings, which I will do shortly.

Here is the goal. Everyone gets to assign 100 praise points and 100 blame points. No one is allowed to comment on another's post until we have at least 10 responses to the original question. In your post you may make whatever arguments you like, and no one will respond until we've heard from at least 10 different B&G members.

Here are the Categories:
Wins
Passing Offense
Passing Defense
Rushing Offense
Passing Defense
Kick/Punt Return
Kick/Punt Coverage
Offensive Game Planning
Defensive Game Planning

Of course, other factors matter, like player development, discipline, etc. However, let's just ignore that for now.

Once this is done for Wins, repeat the process for losses.

Here is my point assigment, even though I haven't really had much time to think it through.

The two numbers following the category are first my points for praise for wins and second my points for blame for losses.
Passing Offense 18 10
Arg: We have decent WR, we got good yards, this unit isn't required to keep the offense off the field - that is the running game's job. Red zone turn overs hurt us some.
Passing Defense 12 18
Arg: We gave up big plays, several games teams passed at will.
Rushing Offense 12 18
Arg: The OL had too many penalties, Duece had his worst year in terms of production, we couldn't keep the defense off the field in the first quarter.
Passing Defense 15 12
Arg: Looked good toward the end of the season, but our LBs didn't contribute much to pass protection, before we got MM they struggled, we gave up a lot of passing yards and big plays, Peyton shredded us.
Kick/Punt Return 12 8
Arg: This unit wasn't spectacular but they were predictable.
Kick/Punt Coverage 12 8
Arg: I don't have much to say about this unit either.
Offensive Game Planning 7 15
Arg: We won DESPITE the 2TE base set, the predictability of our play calling, the misuse of our all-pro back.
Defensive Game Planning 10 13
Arg: Our defense didn't surprise anyone, read and react wtf?, we didn't blitz enough, our lack of talent on this side was fairly well disguised.

Ok. I've only had a few minutes to think this, but since I'm eager to hear what others have to say, I'm going to post this as is. I fully intend to alter my score settings in response to your guys' ideas, so don't hold me to them; after we get through the first ten posts, I'll state my corrections to this distribution.

I hope my numbers reflect these facts: (1) Coaching and game planning constitute one of our biggest problems last season, (2) our weak running game hurt us, (3) our pourous defense wasn't our only problem, but certainly cost us some games. Those are my views. I intend to refine them as the info comes in from all of you.

You'll notice one of the advantages of this method is that it is OBVIOUS that the units' final performace is very closely related to the peformance of other units (so no one should say "the offense doesn't affect the defense, or vice versa); what we are up to is trying to figure how much of our W-L goes to which unit.

[Edited on 24/2/2005 by JKool]

[Edited on 24/2/2005 by JKool]

JKool

It isn\'t that easy to see how all the arguments work together is it? Sure anyone can disagree with this or that, but the big picture is far more complicated than that!

I think that I would decrease my blame for losses by two on each of the Passing Defense and Rushing Offense and add two points to each of the Coaching/Game planning categories for blame for losses (I think I was too nice to the coaches and too hard on the players on that one). Otherwise, I\'m starting to feel pretty good about my assessment.

Notice if we make it only 4 Categories, instead of 8, we get the following:
Praise
Offense - 30
Defense - 27
ST - 24
Coaching - 17
Ooops, I guess I forgot two points. Give one to the offense and one to coaching.

Blame
Offense - 26
Defense - 28
ST - 16
Coaching - 32
Ooops, I guess I\'ve got two points too many. Take one away from coaching and one away from ST.

My idea is that these distributions would help resolve questions like these: how much did the offense hurt the defense, how much is coaching an issue, which parts of our game plan and which personel need to most change, etc.

As you can see it is a COMPLICATED function, it isn\'t as simple as pointing out how many rushing yards we have, how many turnovers, or even how many three and outs we\'ve had. Those all matter, but they matter to a big picture - not one of those arguments alone can decide what we should do without an understanding of how it might impact the rest of the team.

It was just a thought. I hope some of you guys will still play along, but this was a pretty informative exercise for me.

"... I was beating them with my eyes the whole game..." - Aaron Brooks

LKelley67

i started to try kool but it was too much like work. LOL i don\'t think football translates to madden or fantasy team-like numbers as well as baseball does. the success or failure of each unit has an integrated affect on the other. an extreme is kansas city. ya say, if they just had an average defense they would contend. the colts are similar and are getting a little closer. the other end is the ravens- just an average offense and they will go places. they have already won a superbowl in that very fashion. the best though find more of a balance or blend of the two, ie pats n philly (usually defense leading the way). simplistic perhaps, but i look at the total offense/defense ranking trend. even tho the record has hovered at .500 there is no questioning the deteriorating play on both sides of the ball, defense even more so which is obvious. my puny numbers to add-
saints total offense/defense rankings and move from previous year-

2000 def- 10th +20 off- 10th +19
2001 def- 19th -09 off- 08th +2
2002 def- 28th -09 off- 18th -10
2003 def- 18th +10 off- 10th -8
2004 def- 32nd -14 off- 16th -6

a total average of both would go-
2000- 10th
2001- 13.5th
2002- 23rd
2003- 14th
2004- 24th

the last four years the defense has averaged being 24th and the offense 13th. this is not much hope for making the playoffs. 8-8 looks pretty good for those numbers. bottom line if i was the owner is that five years ago we had a top ten defense and offense and won our first playoff game. no playoffs since then, 32-32 since then, offense that is no better or worse, and defense that has spiraled down as far as it can go. how ya do not do some overhaul with those facts i dunno. as highly as many people talk about the ofense it has been just a bit more than average on a whole, certainly not at the kc-indy level. the d... how people can rate it as average in the rate the saints thread i cannot understand.

anyhoo, sorry for no rating numbers but thought i\'d try some sort of offense/defense correlation.

GumboBC

Ahight, Kool, I\'m going to give this a shot!

But, I\'m going to break it down a lil\' different. The first break down is for the first 12 games and the next break-down is for the last 4 games.

First 12-games:

Credit:
Offense - 60%
Defense - 20%
ST - 10%
Coaching - 10%

During the first 12 games, I can\'t think of very many times I could give the defense much credit. When we won any games during the first 12 games it was usually because our offense scored some points. Either Brooks was on in the passing games. Then Stecker rushed for 100+ yards in one of the vitories. Or Deuce got a 100+ yards on an injured ankle, which wasn\'t often.

Blame
Offense - 30%
Defense - 50%
ST - 5%
Coaching - 15%

When we lost, the defense simply couldn\'t stop anyone. The offense struggled too, but not as bad as the defense. I can\'t lay much blame on special teams or coahing. But, that\'s just me.


Now, after the last 12-games:

Credit:
Defense: 50%
Offense: 30%
ST: 5%
Coaching: 15% (Proabably should be higher due to the change in scheme)

Blame:
NONE! We won all of those games and I can find no blame.

baronm

I don\'t know if you can objectify it that easily..but I think that the more time the offense stays on the feild=a better defense and more scoring...ususally.